Episode 18 The Skies of Ossyria

High up in the sky, four hang gliders, thrust forward by twin engines spouting from their tails, zoom forward through the clouds as the sun shines far above them.

“Morning’s come!” Arai cries out loud over the resonant hum of the machines. He reaches into his pockets, withdrawing a cookie but gasps slightly in surprise as the forceful passing wind blows it away into the air.

“How much longer till we get to Ossyria?” Ivy yells over the roar of the engines and wind.

“Should probably take most of the rest of today,” Ryuu replies, averting his eyes left and right to check for oncoming traffic. “Seems like the Myougun haven’t tailed us yet.”

“Strange…” Arai mutters, glancing at Ryuu, “those two guards back at Haven mentioned that Lord Fyx was gone. Where could he be?”

“You’re right, Fyx wasn’t at the facility…” Ryuu growls. “Where could be have gone to?”

“Come to think of it, the last time we saw him was in Sleepywood…” Kunai replies, “he definitely wasn’t among the assassins inside the Cursed Sanctuary.”

“So what if Lord Fyx is nowhere to be found? Shouldn’t we be glad that he’s at least not coming after us anymore?” Ivy asks, turning to the others.

Ryuu shakes his head. “Fyx will definitely come after us again. Trust me, I know how his mind works. There’s no way he’ll let us go free alive, especially after we’ve just blown up his base.”

“You seem to have a pretty lengthy history with Fyx,” Kunai replies.

“Heh, I just know him too well through my work with the Joukai, that’s all,” Ryuu mutters.

Kunai nods, glaring below him into the wide, open sea below. Waves crash over each other on the surface of the ocean, as the wind thrusts the tide into small, leafy islands scattered below.

Kunai slowly, absentmindedly raises his right hand up to his right eye, holding his hand over it for just a moment. Suddenly there is a loud crash, as dark shapes suddenly erupt into the air around them.

Kunai swerves violently as a large, buzzing creature lands on top of his hang glider, causing the engines to sputter dangerously. Kunai yells out loud as Ryuu dashes over to him, drawing out his sword and slashing the Paradox to pieces.

Kunai glances up as Ryuu passes, lowering his sword. “Behind you, Ryuu!”

Ryuu turns as another of the Paradoxes zooms toward him in the air, latching onto his hang glider. “These things are like some sort of parasites!” he growls, waving his sword over his head.

“Ryuu! Stay still!” Kunai yells, sending a flying kick straight through the eye of the Paradox. It immediately releases its grip on Ryuu’s hang glider, but as it falls, it grabs onto Ryuu’s legs, causing him to begin plummeting as well.

“Ryuu!” Kunai cries out loud, lowering to chase after him. Several more Paradox suddenly appear in the surrounding area, with dark dragonish wings sprouting from their backs. Each one carries an armed sword in its hands.

Arai flies forward, quickly hurling a wall of ice in front of Kunai, barring the way. Kunai turns abruptly to Arai, slightly surprised. “Arai! What the hell are you doing?”

“We’ve gotta get out of here!” Arai cries in reply. He deflects a blow from one of the Paradoxes with his staff, waving it and sending a shockwave of thunderbolts towards the others.

“What about Ryuu?!” Kunai cries out loud.

“Ryuu will be fine, our priority is getting to Ossyria first! We only have enough fuel to make it to Ossyria, we don’t have time to waste time fighting these Paradoxes!” Arai yells, deflecting another attack with a shield of lightning.

“Come on, Kunai! You heard Arai! Let’s get out of here!” Ivy cries, waving her arms and signaling Kunai to follow.

Kunai shakes his head, looking back at the direction where Ryuu had fallen, from which he has now disappeared. He closes his eyes frustratingly. ‘I can’t just leave Ryuu like this…’

Kunai sits still, with his arms wrapped around his knees as he stares into a small campfire. Above him, the sky has completely darkened into a moonless, starless night, with a cool, creeping night fog hovering low over the horizon.

Ivy sits next to him on top of a small log, staring into the fire as well. Arai suddenly steps up from behind Kunai, carrying a bunch of small, cracked wooden twigs and throwing them into the fire.

He claps his hands clean of dust and dirt and takes a seat across from Ivy. He fishes out another cookie from his inside pockets and begins munching on it happily.

“Um…will Ryuu be all right all by himself like that?” Ivy asks Arai worriedly.

“Ryuu will be just fine,” Arai replies. He suddenly turns to Kunai seriously. “I know you don’t like me much right now for ordering you to leave Ryuu, but you as his apprentice should know very well that Ryuu is perfectly capable of surviving on his own.

“If it had been me who’d fallen, he would’ve ordered the same thing. ‘Mission comes first,’ he always says. So I’m sure Ryuu will be fine. It’s just a matter of us finding him again now.”

“He could be anywhere though…” Kunai mutters.

“It’s likely he crash landed on one of those smaller islands we’d seen on the ocean passing by overhead earlier. If that’s so, then we can assume he hasn’t drowned. Tomorrow, we should head to El Nath in Ossyria and restock on some more fuel so we can start our search for Ryuu. We can also stop by Alcaster’s on the way to see him about Kunai’s eye,” Arai replies.

“My eye…” Kunai murmurs to himself, holding his hand over his right eye again. He blinks, shaking a sudden thought from his head.

“Hm…” Arai mutters, “If you’ve really been attacked by a Paradox then this makes our situation a little bit more difficult, without anyone in our party capable of slaying the Triplicates.”

“We have to worry about that later,” Kunai replies, “first things first is that we’ve gotta hurry up and find Ryuu. We can’t go around with our group split up like this.”

“Hm, you’re right,” Arai replies, “my, this splitting up business is getting to be such a hassle. We could already be heading to the next Triplicate tomorrow if it weren’t for this.”

“At any rate, finding Ryuu comes first now,” Ivy replies.

There is suddenly a loud rustling behind the group inside a net of trees and high-growing grass. Arai and Kunai both stand up abruptly, bracing themselves for a battle. Ivy slowly stands up, hugging her Thorns and staring inquiringly into the grass.

“Who’s there?” Kunai cries out into the air.

A round of arrows suddenly fly into the air. Arai grunts as he steps forward, waving his staff and easily freezing the arrows so they drop to the ground.

A man dressed in raggedy clothes suddenly enters the campsite, a poorly crafted bow in his hands, and a quiver of arrows strung over his bare shoulders. Behind him several others similarly dressed and some bearing torches appear.

In the flickering light, Kunai stares perplexedly into the gruff, wild faces of the newcomers. He lowers his hands, still holding a Steely in his bare right hand.

“Who are you people?” the apparent Chief growls, staring at the three of them and at the flickering campfire.

Arai steps forward, reaching out his hand to shake the Chief’s. “Hello, my name is Arai, and these two here are my friends, Kunai and Ivy.”

The Chief nods slowly as he stares at Arai, then at Kunai. Finally he turns his head to Ivy and gives a slight start in surprise. “L-Lady Iris?!” he cries out loud. Several of the men behind him quickly start whispering amongst themselves incomprehensibly.

“Lady Iris?” Arai mutters, his eyes straying over to Ivy. “No, you must have her confused with someone else. This girl is our friend and ally, her name is Ivy, not Iris.”

“O-Of course, of course…” the Chief mutters, shaking his head sadly and sighing. “This girl can’t possibly be Lady Iris…she hasn’t appeared on this island in years.”

“May I ask who is this Lady Iris?” Kunai asks.

“Ah, yes, of course…” the Chief replies. “My people and I live a secluded life on this chain of small islands nestled in the wide ocean between the great lands of Victoria Island and Ossyria. We have done so for many years, hundreds of years, in fact.

“My people have often farmed for food in this land, occasionally stepping out to hunt the Wild Boars hidden deep within valleys on our islands. However, they are scarce and their meat is tough and unpleasant. However, years ago, a woman appeared to us, promising to grant us crops in such quantity that for the first time we had a great surplus of food among our people. She told us to call her Lady Iris, and she also promised she would return one day with another gift of crop.”

“And she did this all out of the kindness of her heart? This woman claiming to be Lady Iris appeared to you suddenly with no warning and brought you food?” Kunai cries out loud in amazement.

“Yes, we were told she was doing this all of her own free will, out of the kindness of her heart,” the Chief answers. “However, when the time came for her to leave, she left laden with leather from our finest boars, and whatever of the extra crop we could spare.

“After many moons passed, we thought she had forgotten us. But one night, she reappeared, laden this time with something my people had not seen in centuries: mana, concentrated into small bottles. With this newly acquired mana, our people quickly prospered, and we were able to perform lost skills from my people’s past. Our farming suddenly became more prosperous than we’d seen in decades. We couldn’t thank her enough.

“We begged Lady Iris to allow us to present her with a gift of some kind, and to that she hesitated for a moment, before she suddenly asked of us to teach her how to shoot.”

“Shoot?” Kunai mutters, raising an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘shoot?’”

“As you see us now, we are equipped with bows. Having had to hunt occasionally, my people have developed bows and have become quite expert marksmen. Lady Iris had known of this since her first visit to our land. In return for her many gifts, our people taught her how to shoot. Interestingly enough, she wielded not a bow, but a weapon our people had never seen before.”

“Stars,” Kunai mutters, raising the Steely still clutched in his hand up to the light of the torches.

“Yes, exactly…” the Chief mutters in a deep, mystical voice. “We taught her how to aim, and how to control her shot, how even to hit moving targets with ease. She was a natural as well, for though she wielded a different weapon from ours, she mastered the technique in days. That is when everything went wrong…”

“Went wrong? How?” Ivy asks.

“Lady Iris promised once again to return with gifts after she left, and my people were foolish enough to believe her. For by then we had become dependant on her gifts, and the mana that she had brought to our people. But she never returned. We’ve never heard from Lady Iris since.

“Since, my people have used up our entire supply of mana, and reverted back to a state of poverty such that we knew before Lady Iris first came to us. We’ve only progressed slowly closer towards doom ever since, for plagues and droughts have brought us little fruit of our labor. My people…are dying…”

“That’s horrible…” Kunai mutters.

“Kunai! We have to help these people!” Ivy cries out loud suddenly.

Kunai nods slowly, turning from Ivy to the Chief. “Yes, we can’t let these people die. I will promise to help you as well, Chief.”

The Chief breaks into a grin suddenly, shaking hands with Kunai. “Thank you very much.”

Arai sighs, stretching as he stares up into the blank night sky above them. “My…I certainly hope Ryuu’s doing okay. At this rate it’ll be quite some time before we reunite again, it seems.”